Finally! The book “Baby- und Kinderpflege – natürlich selbstgemacht” (Baby and Child Care – natural homemade), written by my wife, was published by Freya. The book includesmanybasics, numerousrecipes, allvegetarian,many of them even vegan, for self-stirring. In composing your own cosmetics, they arewithoutartificial sweeteners, preservativesandallergenicperfume oils. The basic ingredientsare vegetable oilsandfloral waters.

After we had published two ring binder books called “Naturseifen einfach selbstgemacht” (Soaps easily homemade) and “Hausgemachte Naturkosmetik” (Homemade natural cosmetics) in our own publishing house (Waldfaun), but sell it only on the website, we are now proud that the new book is also sold in bookstores.

My wife teaches adults how to make soap and how to mix cosmetics in adult education courses. Parallel to these courses she wrote the former mentioned two recipe collections. Last year, Inés deepened into mixing of cosmetics especially for children and babies, as she had numerous requests how to do that. Children have more sensitive skin than adults.

Together we draped the mixed ointments, creams and lotions, as well as the ingredients, thus many of the photos in the book were contributed by us.

The book is also available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.de/dp/3990252518

Enjoy reading and mixing, all you mothers and fathers, and also all you grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Some years ago we and some of our friends decided to hike along the Way of St. James in stages. It was not our goal to go on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, we simply like hiking. Now, such a thing as “the” Way of St. James doesn’t actually exist. If someone wanted to see the grave of St. James in the Middle Ages, he began his journey at the door of his home and ended near Santiago de Compostela. Today, a european nomenclature denotes only the last section (Puente la Reina to Santiago) in the north of Spain as Way of St. James, all others are now called “Ways of the pilgrims of St. James”. That said we took one “way of the pingrims of St. James” – even only a short part of it, between Christgarten and Neresheim. A really lovely church (St. Sola Church) can be found in Kösingen. The priest even showed us the rooms behind the altar, the sacristy, which at that time was not accessible for the public. On 08/21/2013 they had an article in the local press called SchwäPo. Unfortunately the article is only available for subscribers.

When hiking in europe, you can often find a stylized scallop by the side of the road. The icon (often in conjunction with a yellow arrow showing the direction) blazes the right trail. But why the scallop? Each pilgrim finishing his pilgrimage, was handed out such a sea shell. He pinned it onto his pilgrim’s hat, his pilgrim’s bag or his pilgrim’s pole. It acted as identification tag, so pilgrims and non-pilgrims knew, who took the cumbersome way to the grave of St. James.
Numerous statues and paintings of the Middle Ages [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] show St. James and pilgrims with wide-brimmed hats with these shells pinned onto. These hats were typically felted like nearly every medieval hat. The material (water, stale urine and sheeps’ wool) was cheap, there were no other resources needed for the production (contrary to other handcrafts) and even better the result was water proof and nearly fire proof.

In 2005, when my wife discovered felting, the most interesting felting objects were hats of the Middle Ages. It wasn’t a long time coming until she felted her first pilgrim’s hat. In the meantime she has created several handfelted pilgrim’s hats. I am really looking forward to see the film “Die Pilgerin” (The Female Pilgrim), where some of her hats will be seen. The film is currently in production. Here are some selected photos of her hats. Anyone who wants to go on a pilgrimage himself/herself and needs a pilgrim’s equipment, may find a handfelted hat to buy on her felting homepage Zauberreigen (magic round dance).

I’d like to see my sister Johanna (or Joy, which is more likely what she wants to be called) more often. But we both are very busy. 🙁
She’ll become a real artist as she went to an artist’s school.
Here are some interesting links:Article in Mittelbayerische from 2007Her student’s profile – also watch her paintings there.

Since 2013 she has an artist’s name and a homepage of her own:Johanna Mangold, where she presents her paintings. If you wonder where the name “Mangold” comes from: It is the maiden name of our beloved grandmother Maria.

In 2007 my wife Inés and I made a dream come true: participate to a medieval fair. Inés had gained much experience in felting, so she wantet to felt with children at the market. At castle Katzenstein (engl: cat stone) the spectaculum took place. We were overwhelmed by the mass of children that wanted to felt with us. We rarely had time to get something to eat or drink. But we had so much fun we decided to do that again.

For the presentation of the felt works of my wife I built a homepage. Inés felted some pieces especially for the design of the homepage. We should renew some part of the page. But for treasuring all those felted blooms, hats and bags the page perfectly serves our needs.